Lucasfilm exec Pablo Hidalgo revealed on a new episode of The Star Wars Show on YouTube that one of the Corellian hounds at the beginning of the film was played by Saxon – AKA the direwolf Nymeria in George RR Martin’s HBO fantasy series.

Saxon had to wear an elaborate costume for the role, which made him unrecognisable – so don’t beat yourself up if you missed his scene.

“He’s done this for quite a while. He’s done quite a few film jobs,” his trainer Jo Vaughan said during the YouTube video. “For this particular film, we’ve trained him to wear a suit so he doesn’t look like a dog at all, he looks like another creature entirely.”

Convincing him to wear the outfit was no small, feat, however.

“We first start with a lycra body suit which we get them used to getting in and out of the suit, build everything up very slowly, and then, once we’ve got that, we start adding muscle shapes and then we just build it up from there,” fabricator Sherri Hazzard explained.

Hidalgo later posted a pic with the canine on Twitter, adding that he is a “good dog”. Aaw.

This is me meeting a real honest-to-gosh star. Saxon plays Nymeria in Game of Thrones. Also: a good dog. pic.twitter.com/lmQzXlPclH

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